Exportation

“ We have been always told that the great thing is to secure a great importation; that such a thing must necessarily lead to a corresponding increase of exportation;—that all apprehension about the imports being paid in gold, and not in manufactures, are chimerical;—that the sooner the inferior lands in the British islands go out of cultivation the better;—that ample food for the inhabitants will be obtained from foreign states; and that the agriculturists thrown out of employment by the change will be rapidly absorbed, and more profitably employed in sustaining our extended manufactures. ”

“ Although then the rise in the price of most of our own commodities, would for a time check exportation generally, and might permanently prevent the exportation of a few commodities, it could not materially interfere with foreign trade, and would not place us under any comparative disadvantage as far as regarded competition in foreign markets. ”

“ The exportation of the specie may at all times be safely left to the discretion of individuals, it will not be exported more than any other commodity, unless its exportation should be advantageous to the country. ”

“ In the exportation of the produce of their own country, the merchants of a landed nation would have an advantage of the same kind over those of mercantile nations which its artificers and manufacturers had over the artificers and manufacturers of such nations ”

“ The returns of quantities are compiled from the officially controlled declarations of importers and exporters. These declarations state the countries from which the articles are directly imported and to which they are directly exported. An article coming, for example, from the East Indies via London is recorded as coming from England. The recorded imports include all articles imported, whether for consumption inland or for re-exportation. ”

“ If the natural advantages upon such articles are less considerable, no duty can be imposed. Exportation may then be encouraged by granting still greater privileges to strangers or others, who may promote the exportation at little cost to the state. ”

“ A bounty of 121⁄2 per cent upon an average on the exportation of such or similar linens from Great Britain encourages the manufacture of them in that country and increases the obstacles to a successful competition in the countries to which they are sent. ”

“ It can not escape notice that a duty upon the importation of an article can not otherwise aid the domestic production of it than by giving the latter greater advantages in the home market. It can have no influence upon the advantageous sale of the article produced in foreign markets—no tendency, therefore, to promote its exportation. ”

“ With the investment of large amounts of money and an increase in the area cultivated this industry will no doubt in a few years be able to supply fully the demand and have a surplus of 50 per cent over for exportation. ”

“ In our exportations we must not only regard our own superfluities, but also we must consider our neighbours necessities, that so upon the wares which they cannot want, nor yet be furnished thereof elsewhere, we may (besides the vent of the Materials) gain so much of the manufacture as we can, and also endeavour to sell them dear, so far forth as the high price cause not a less vent in the quantity. ”

“ For although in this manner wee do yearly multiply our importation to the maintenance of more Shipping and Mariners, improvement of His Majesties Customs and other benefits: yet our consumption of those forraign wares is no more than it was before; so that all the said encrease of commodities brought in by the means of our ready mony sent out as is afore written, doth in the end become an exportation unto us of a far greater value than our said moneys were, which is proved by three several examples following. ”

“ We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous, which consists in the exchange of the hardware of England for the wines of France, and yet hardware is a very durable commodity, and were it not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the country. But it readily occurs, that the number of such utensils is in every country necessarily limited by the use which there is for them; that it would be absurd to have more pots and pans than were necessary for cooking the victuals usually consumed there; ”

“ A bounty on the exportation of corn tends to lower its price to the foreign consumer, but it has no permanent effect on its price in the home market. ”

“ In 1622, according to another account which has been preserved, the total amount of exportations, including therein the custom at 5 per cent, on such goods as paid poundage, the imposts on bays, tin, lead, and pewter, and the merchants' profit of 15 per cent., together with freight and petty charges, was 2,320,436l. 12s. 10d.; while the total value of the imports, including 91,059l. ”

“ Exports and imports were no longer a tiny margin in an economy just above the subsistence level. Exports were primarily raw wool and cloth, but also grain, butter, eggs, herring, hides, leather goods such as bottles and boots, embroideries, metalware, horseshoes, daggers, tin, coal, and lead. Imported were wine, silk, timber, furs, rubies, emeralds, fruits, raisins, currents, pepper, ginger, cloves, rice, cordovan leather, pitch, hemp, spars, fine iron, short rods of steel, bow-staves of yew, tar, oil, salt, cotton (for candle-wicks) , and alum (makes dyes hold) . ”

“ We have inland navigation. Our last exports did not exceed £1,000,000. Our export trade is entirely in the hands of foreigners. We have no manufactures—depend for supplies on other nations—and so far are we from having any carrying trade, that, as I have already said, our exports are in the hands of foreigners. Besides the profit that might be made by our natural materials, much greater gains would accrue from their being first wrought before they were exported. ”

“ There is no doubt that our prohibiting the importation of a particular article, which, but for the prohibition, would have been imported, enables us to obtain our other imports at smaller cost. The article for which we have the greatest demand, and for which our demand is most increased by cheapness, is that which we should naturally import preferably to any other; now of this article we should import the quantity necessary to pay for our exports, on terms of interchange less advantageous to us than in the case of any other commodity. ”

“ Countries which export food, have the former advantage, but not the latter. But our own colonies, and the countries which supply us with the materials of our manufactures, maintain a hard struggle with us for an equal share of the advantages of their trade; for their exports are also of a kind for which there exists a most extensive demand here, and a demand capable of almost indefinite extension by a fall of price. ”

“ The exports must very nearly amount to the value of foreign imports, which consist principally of sugar, wine, brandy, salt, wearing apparel, and household furniture. The import duty on European and North American produce is twenty-seven per cent. ”

“ The case which we have just examined, is an example in how remarkable a manner every cause which materially influences exports, operates upon the prices of imports. According to the ancient theory of the balance of trade, and to the associations of the generality of what are termed practical men to this day, the sole benefit derived from commerce consists in the exports, and imports are rather an evil than otherwise. ”

“ The vulgar theory disregards this benefit, and deems the advantage of commerce to reside in the exports: as if not what a country obtains, but what it parts with, by its foreign trade, was supposed to constitute the gain to it. An extended market for its produce—an abundant consumption for its goods—a vent for its surplus—are the phrases by which it has been customary to designate the uses and recommendations of commerce with foreign countries. ”

“ The other modes of payment for the excess of imports are, of course, well known to you all. In the first place, the difference is much greater in appearance than in reality, because of the difference in values, the imports being charged at their value on arrival here, while the exports represent their value in this country, not the price at which the goods are eventually sold—the stated values are nett—and the profits of our merchants should be deducted from the value of the imports, and added to that of our exports respectively. ”

“ The countries not possessing a native supply, could obtain it only by what was called a favourable balance of trade, that is to say, by exporting to a value exceeding that of their imports, and receiving the difference in money. ”

“ The other, and this is even a more pressing solicitude to him, is that it is of vital importance to us to look after our external markets, to make sure that we shall always have customers, and good customers, to buy our goods, and so to enable us to pay for our indispensable imports. The Free Trader does not share this solicitude. He has got a comfortable theory that if you only look after your imports your exports will look after themselves. ”

“ The first branch of foreign trade, which is the export and import of goods, depends on the money. if one half of the people are imployed, and the whole product and manufacture consumed; more money, by imploying more people, will make an overplus to export: if then the goods [Pg 24] imported ballance the goods exported, a greater addition to the money will imploy yet more people, or the same people before employed to more advantage; which by making a greater, or more valuable export, will make a ballance due. ”

“ Today, with our total trade expanded from P1.8 billion in 1954 to P1.9 billion, we have channelled 42 per cent of it to Europe, Asia, and Central and South Amer­ica. This geographical broadening of our trade is an en­couraging feign of growing stability and lessened dependence on a single country us the source of our imports and the market for our exports. ”

“ The excess of the value of imports over that of exports, which is regarded by some as an adverse and alarming symptom in British trade, is in large part readily accounted for on the ground of shipping receipts, insurance returns, interest on capital employed in foreign trade, merchants' profits, and the income derived from foreign investments. ”

“ And along with this vast aggrandizement of manufacturing industry and commerce, there has been a steady increase of both imports and exports, as well as of revenue from customs. The increase in imports has consisted of articles of luxury and raw materials for manufacture. And, as if to leave nothing wanting in the demonstration, the increase of exports has constantly included more and more of the products of agriculture. ”

“ Our exports are bulky, and therefore must employ much shipping, which might be nearly all our own: our exports are chiefly necessaries of life, or raw materials, the food for the manufacturers of other nations. On the contrary, the chief of what we receive from other countries, we can either do without, or produce substitutes. ”

“ Our foreign commerce has shown great increase in volume and value. The combined imports and exports for the year are the largest ever shown by a single year in all our history. Our exports for 1899 alone exceeded by more than a billion dollars our imports and exports combined in 1870. The imports per capita are 20 per cent less than in 1870, while the exports per capita are 58 per cent more than in 1870, showing the enlarged capacity of the United States to satisfy the wants of its own increasing population, as well as to contribute to those of the peoples of other nations. ”

“ England might possibly import more goods from, than she would export to, France, but she would in consequence export more to some other country, and France would import more from that country; so that the exports and imports of all countries would balance each other ”

“ Our exports especially are increasing beyond all anticipation. All we sell and all we buy abroad is paid and settled for on the gold basis. The prices of our principal articles of export, of our agricultural staples, are virtually determined in the foreign market. ”

“ In the case of England and Germany, as well as many other prosperous countries whose foreign-trade sheets show an excess of imports over exports, this excess represents the profit on trading abroad, and the inflow of returns upon capital invested abroad. ”

“ American producers send more than 90 per cent. of their entire foreign shipments, or more than $2,000,000,000 worth of goods, to nineteen countries, and the remaining ten per cent. covers the trade with all the rest of the world. England buys about 26 per cent. of the total American export; Canada 15 per cent.; Germany 13 per cent.; France 7 per cent.; the Netherlands 4 per cent.; Italy, Cuba, and Belgium, each 3 per cent.; Mexico, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Russia, and Brazil, each 2 per cent.; and Spain, Austria-Hungary, Panama, China, and the Philippines, each about 1 per cent. ”

“ The manufacturer or the merchant must take the pains to accommodate a direct import trade to the exigencies of the local market. As an example, smaller bales and shorter lengths are requisite in the piece goods. The establishment of sample warehouses at the treaty ports, and in the more important trade-centres of the interior, where bales of shirting, cotton and woollen goods, cases of farming implements, &c., could be opened and sold for cash, would appeal to the natives. ”

“ Fifthly.—They are to advise how Free Ports or Landing-places for Foreign Commodities imported (without paying of Custom if again exported) may be appointed in several parts of this Land, and in what manner the same is to be effected.
Sixthly.—They are to consider of some way, that a most exact account be kept of all commodities imported and exported through the Land, to the end that a perfect Balance of Trade may be taken, whereby the Commonwealth may not be impoverished, by receiving of Commodities yearly from Foraign parts of a greater value than what was carried out. ”